A Cognitive Analysis of English Spatial Preposition “Above”

1、題目：英語(yǔ)空間介詞above的認(rèn)知分析 a cognitive analysis of english spatial preposition “above”摘要【摘要】本文將以意向圖示的界標(biāo)(trajectory)和射體(landmark)關(guān)系和概念隱喻中的方位性隱喻為指導(dǎo)，通過(guò)分類研究法，對(duì)介詞above進(jìn)行意向圖式分析及隱喻投射研究。本研究側(cè)重于通過(guò)例子、圖表并結(jié)合理論從認(rèn)知語(yǔ)義角度解讀介詞above.介詞above有10多種義項(xiàng)，本文首先將之分成本義和引申義兩大類。意向圖式中的上下理論和界標(biāo)射體關(guān)系可以用來(lái)分析介詞above的空間方位意義。當(dāng)above意為“在上方”時(shí)，上下理論和界標(biāo)射

2、體的關(guān)系能解釋這一中心語(yǔ)義網(wǎng)的形成。根據(jù)tr與lm的不同位置關(guān)系，本文中主要將above的本義分成四類，tr與lm接觸，不移動(dòng)；tr與lm接觸，移動(dòng)；tr與lm不接觸，不移動(dòng)；tr與lm不接觸，移動(dòng)。再次，文章通過(guò)概念隱喻理論分析above的引申義，主要分析above作為“地位”，“能力”和“聲音”這三種引申義解釋時(shí)，這種表示能力級(jí)別等關(guān)系的意義是如何通過(guò)空間意義上的上下關(guān)系所映射出來(lái)的。本研究旨在從認(rèn)知語(yǔ)義角度對(duì)介詞above進(jìn)行全面的解讀，幫助讀者更好的理解介詞above?！娟P(guān)鍵詞】空間介詞above；意向圖式；概念隱喻。a cognitive analysis of english sp

3、atial preposition “above”abstract【abstract】the thesis will analyze the meaning of the word “above” through classification by employing “trajectory” (tr) and “l(fā)andmark” (lm) in the image schema and the conceptual metaphor theory. the present study focuses on the analysis of the word “above” in accord

4、ance with examples, figures and theory from the perspective of cognitive linguistics. first, by examining the word “above”, which has more than 10 meanings, i classify these meanings into two parts: the original meaning and the extended meaning. as far as the spatial feature of its original meaning

5、is concerned, i choose the relationship of tr and lm and up-down schema to further analyze it. when the word “above” means “at the top of”, the tr and lm theory and the up-down schema theory can well explain this forming of the semantic meaning. the original meaning of the word “above” can be divide

6、d into four parts according to the tr and lm relationship: tr and lm touched and unfixed, tr and lm touched and fixed, tr and lm untouched and unfixed, tr and lm untouched and fixed. again, this study analyzes the extended meaning of the word “above” with conceptual metaphor. the key is to analyze h

7、ow the meaning of superior-subordinate relationship is mapping from the spatial up-down relationship to its conceptualized meaning when the word “above” is understood as “status” , “ability” and “sound”. the purpose of this study is to analyze the word “above” from the perspective of cognitive seman

8、tics to help readers have a comprehensive understanding of the word “above”. 【keywords】spatial preposition “above”；image schema；conceptual metaphor.contents誠(chéng) 信 承 諾i摘要iiabstractiiicontentsiv1introduction11.1 purpose of the thesis11.1.1 introduction11.1.2 significance of the present study21.2 organiza

9、tion of the thesis32literature review42.1 cognitive linguistics42.2 image schema42.3 metaphor53the interpretation of cognitive semantics of “above”73.1 the classification of the word “above” 73.2 the original meaning of “above” 73.2.1 trajectory-landmark structure of image schema83.2.2 the up-down s

10、chema of “above” 93.3 the extended meaning of “above” 113.3.1 target domain and source domain of conceptual metaphor113.3.2 metaphorical extensions of “above” as “status” 133.3.3 metaphorical extensions of “above” as “ability” 133.3.4 metaphorical extensions of “above” as “sound” 143.4 the network o

11、f “above” 144conclusions164.1 major findings164.2 limitations and recommendations for future research16references18acknowledgements20appendix21211 introduction 1.1 purpose of the thesis the purpose of this study is to analyze the word “above” from the perspective of cognitive semantics to help compr

12、ehensively understand the word “above” by employing” trajectory” (tr) and “l(fā)andmark” (lm) in the image schema and orientational metaphor in the conceptual metaphor theory.1.1.1 introductioncognitive linguistics (cl), as ungerer and schmid (2001:36) put it, is an approach to language that is based on

13、 our experience of the world and the way we perceive and conceptualize it. it is a newly emerging, cross-disciplinary subject within linguistics, which has developed so rapidly over the last two decades both at home and abroad, and began to gain more and more adherers. cl began in the 1970s and its

14、quick development and extension of investigated issues dates to the mid-1980s. since then the scope of interest of this branch of science started to include various areas such as prototype and categories, categorization, metaphors and metonymies, figure-ground, frame and attention, iconicity, and gr

15、ammaticalization. many important cognitive linguists, such as george lakoff, eve sweester, ronald langacker, mark johnson, mark turner and charles fillmore have given a full elaboration to each of these aspects. especially lakoff and johnson, they publish the book metaphors we live by (lakoff & john

16、son，1980) and put forward two cognitive structures: image schema and metaphorical structure.image schema, which is derived from the principle of figure/ground segregation, is only a small aspect of the theoretical whole of cl. however, it plays a significant role in the analysis of certain language

17、phenomena from the cognitive point of view. it is quite typical that english spatial particles such as “in”, “over”, “at”, etc have numerous meanings associated with them. it is claimed by cognitive linguists that these various distinctive meanings are related “in systematic and highly motivated way

18、s within a semantic network organized with respect to a primary sense” (tyler and evans 2003:2).and image schema is employed to represent the semantics of the spatial particles. lakoff (1987:440) considers the image schema transformations from spatial domains to the other domains to be quite a “natu

19、ral” process and “cognitive real”. each spatial particle has certain basic senses, which represent purely physical relations in space. they show different kinds of relations ranging from place, position, time, to other abstract or metaphorical domains. image schema can help to represent spatial rela

20、tions concepts, and lay the basis for metaphorical extensions of the word from spatial to non-spatial domains, from physical to non-physical or metaphorical domains. image schema is not only the structural model of metaphor, but also can help understand metaphor. metaphor is the basis of the human c

21、oncept and the psychological foundation of it is schema and image schema. metaphor, which can be traced back to as early as aristotle, is a cross-domain mapping from the source domain to the target domain. as a consequence of its alleged odd status, metaphor was not deemed worthy of a place at the c

22、ore of linguistics. its study was hence mainly left to the literary critics. at the end of the 1970s however, landmark publications such as ortony (1979) and lakoff & johnson (1980) completed what may be called the “cognitive turn” in metaphor. many scholars are studying metaphors from various aspec

23、ts, and it is no wonder there are so many theories of metaphor. among them the most important are interaction theory (richards, 1936), speech act theory (searl 1979), salience-imbalance theory (ortony 1979), structure mapping theory (gentner 1989), class-inclusion theory (glucksberg & keysar 1990),

24、conceptual metaphor theory (lakoff & johnson 1980) and relevance theory (sperber & wilson 1986). these theories differ from each other but do not exclude each other. among them, the conceptual metaphor theory is the most revolutionary and the most influential. it completely overthrows the traditiona

25、l division of literal and figurative language, which is still followed by many contemporary scholars, and puts forward a new way to classify the language. therefore it is most heatedly debated as well as best developed. 1.1.2 significance of the present studythe objective of the thesis is to probe i

26、nto the spatial meaning and the conceptual metaphorical meaning of the word “above” with the image schema and the conceptual metaphor theory.in terms of cognitive linguistics, multiple senses attributed to an english particle are regarded as internally related, forming a polysemy network organized a

27、round the central meanings of the word. in most cases, the central meanings refer to the basic physical relations between entities in space, the configurations of which are represented by image schemas. when people receive this kind of schema from the spatial structure to construct such related expe

28、rience, and expand it to apply it to other cognitive activities, the word obtains the metaphorical meaning through mapping. the meaning of the word “above” can be divided into two parts, the original meaning and extended meaning. people have analyzed its meaning with image schema and basically showe

29、d the relationship between its original meaning and extended meaning. the semantics of “above” have been analyzed by authoritative cognitive linguists, which provide sufficient data for the present study. however, according to the available data, the research people have done on the word “above” fro

30、m the view of cognitive linguistics is by far not perfect.1.2 organization of the thesisthe thesis is divided up into four chapters. the first chapter starts by taking a brief look at the status of cognitive linguistics and then briefly introduces the image schema and the conceptual metaphor theory.

31、 the purpose of this section is followed by an overall introduction to the thesis. the second chapter describes the theoretical background that has guided this study, which discusses the development of two theories: tr and lm in the image schema, and the conceptual metaphor theory.in the third chapt

32、er, i classify the word “above” into two parts, the original meaning and the extended meaning. for the original meaning, i choose up-down schema and tr and lm in the image schema to explain it, but for the extended meaning, the image schema is not that convincing, therefore i employ the conceptual m

33、etaphor to explain the meaning of the word “above” as “status” ,“ability” and “sound”.finally, the fourth chapter concludes the thesis by demonstrating the significance of the study, the limitations and the potentials for future research.2 literature review2.1 cognitive linguisticsin linguistics and

34、 cognitive science, cognitive linguistics (cl) refers to the school of linguistics that understands language creation, learning, and usage as best explained by reference to human cognition in general. cl is the study of the mind through language and the study of language as a cognitive function. it

35、has two main goals: (1) to study how cognitive mechanisms like memory, categorization, attention, and imagery are used during language behavior, and (2) to develop psychologically viable models of language that cover broad ranges of linguistic phenomena, including idioms and figurative language. cl

36、is a very young discipline, which had its beginnings in the 1970s, and whose quick development and extension of investigated issues dates to the mid-1980s. since then the scope of interest of this branch of science started to include various areas such as syntax, discourse, phonology and semantics.

37、in 1980, lakoff and johnson published the book metaphors we live by and put forward two cognitive structures: image schema and metaphorical structure.2.2 image schemaimage schema, as lakoff and johnson put it in 1980, is one of the most important concepts in lc. oakley (2004) points out that an imag

38、e schema is a condensed re-description of perceptual experience for the purpose of mapping spatial structure onto conceptual structure. in my own understanding, image schema is a simple and basic cognitive structure generated in our daily interaction with the world and its idea is to experience some

39、 sort of cognitive pattern or schema of certain spatial relationship. the schema, which has thus developed, is obviously less concrete than the rich prototype categories of objects and organisms (ungerer and schmid, 2001:160).image schema is used by cognitive linguists mainly to construct spatial-re

40、lations, such as up-down, container, balance, path, link, center-perirhery, etc. spatial relations do not exist as entities in the external world. we do not see spatial relations the way we see physical entities. english spatial particles are well-known for its polysemous character, especially engli

41、sh prepositions or adverbs which have more senses than any other lexical categories. in order to analyze the cognitive meaning of the sentence, cognitive grammar creates the concept of “trajectory” (tr) and “l(fā)andmark” (lm). in langackers tr and lm, image schema consists of tr, lm and path, which sho

42、ws an asymmetric relationship. tr is the main part in this asymmetric relationship and lm is the reference of the tr. image schema can express not only the static relationship of tr and lm, but also the dynamic relationship. tr is the figure within a relational profile in the interrelated entities.

43、in other words, tr refers to the figure within a relational profile in the (either abstract or concrete) concepts or the contexts, which is often implied with the characteristics of movement, both substantial movement and abstract movement, so under normal circumstances, it can be understood as “dyn

44、amic.” however, in a particular context, it sometimes refers to the static figure within a relational profile. lm is the element within a relational profile correspondent to tr; it functions as a reference to establish tr. lakoff (1987:440) argues that image schema plays a central role in both our p

45、erception and reason. he also considers the image schema transformations from spatial domains to other domains to be quite a “natural” process and “cognitive real”, even though the language users may probably not be aware of all of those schematizations, when he is more concerned with his language e

46、xpressing and being consistent with the structure of the language he knows.following cognitive linguists like brugman, lakoff, tyler and evans, many chinese researchers have also expounded similar ideas in analyzing both english and chinese language corpuses. for instance, luo ruiqiu (2003) argues t

47、hat image schema is the path to spatial conceptual metaphorical meanings through his cognitive semantic study on prepositions of “at”, “on” and “in”. rao ping (2003) sets forth the idea that it is the central schema of the preposition “under” that the other semantic variations of “under” are extende

48、d to realize its various functions. chen ying and shi lan (1995) also analyze the chinese spatial word “上”, and discuss the relation between its central images and the multiple metaphorical expressions.it is obvious that each spatial particle has certain basic senses, which represent purely physical

49、 relations in space. however, it is by no means that all its senses denote concrete physical relations. they show different kinds of relations ranging from place, position, time, to other abstract or metaphorical domains. in general, image schema does have considerable explanatory power, which can h

50、elp represent spatial relations concepts, and lay the basis for further elaborations and metaphorical extensions of the word from spatial to non-spatial domains, from physical to non-physical or metaphorical domains. image schema is not only the structural model of metaphor, but also can help unders

51、tand metaphor. 2.3 metaphorimage schema is the cognitive base of the metaphor, which plays an important role in mapping. its extension is realized through metaphorical process. metaphor is the basis of the human concept and the psychological foundation of it is schema and image schema. that is to sa

52、y, because of the image and image schema, metaphor is able to map between two domains, the target domain and the source domain. and the metaphorical meaning emerges from the mapping of image schema.metaphor can be traced back to as early as aristotle. his interpretation of metaphor as the mechanism

53、of renaming and transference is later developed into “comparison theory”, which dominates the traditional study of metaphor. some roman thinkers like quintilian inherited and reinforced aristotles idea, arguing that metaphor is a figure of speech, and produced only when there is similarity between t

54、he two compared objects. they think interpretation of metaphor contains all the basic elements of classical view on metaphor. in 1980, lakoff and johnson published a book metaphors we live by, which pointed out that the central thesis of the theory is that metaphor, in its broad sense, is pervasive

55、and essential in language and thought. metaphor is no longer regarded as a figure of speech, but a figure of thought (lakoff 1980). lakoff elaborates how human conceptual system is metaphorically conceptual and metaphorically structured and defined. in his theory, “conceptual metaphor is pervasive i

56、n everyday life, not just in language but in thought and action.” (lakoff 1980:4) he classifies the metaphor into three parts: structural metaphor, orientational metaphor and ontological metaphor. in the orientational metaphor, he also puts the up-down schema. metaphor is a cross-domain mapping from

57、 the source domain to the target domain. the mapping follows the invariance principle: metaphorical mappings preserve the cognitive topology of the source domain, in a way consistent with the inherent structure of the target domain (lakoff & turner 1989). that means there must be correspondences bet

58、ween the two domains: source domain interiors correspond to target domain interiors; source domain exteriors correspond to target domain exteriors. at the same time, there is another principle: target domain overrides. that is the structure inherent in the target domain, which cannot be violated; it decides what properties of the source domain can be mapped. thus it certainly is regarded as the mark of the transformation. the cognitive approach to metaphor has grown into one of the most exciting fields of research in the social science.with the rising of conceptua